Remorse and Criminal Justice

Abstract

A defendant’s failure to show remorse is one of the most powerful factors in criminal sentencing, including capital sentencing. Yet there is currently no evidence that remorse can be accurately evaluated in a courtroom. Conversely there is evidence that race and other impermissible factors create hurdles to evaluating remorse. There is thus an urgent need for studies about whether and how remorse can be accurately evaluated. Moreover, there is little evidence that remorse is correlated with future law-abiding behavior or other legitimate penal purposes, and, in fact, there is evidence that remorse is often conflated with shame, which is correlated with increased future criminality. More accurate information on the nature and evaluation of remorse can be used to reform the criminal justice system.

Modelling perceptions of criminality and remorse from faces using a data-driven computational approach

“…Although remorse is used in the criminal justice system and plays an influential role (Bandes, 2016), little is known about the information people rely on when they shows genuine remorse or not (see Figure 2). Although the face models are holistic and do not refer to single facial features, informally comparing versions of the same faces with low and high levels of remorse suggests that perceived remorse goes along with lighter pigmentation, raised inner corners of the eyebrows, and lip corners that are pulled downward.…”

“…The former approach has been described in detail by Todorov and colleagues (2008;; and the latter approach by Walker and Vetter (2009;2016). To summarize, in both approaches, faces are represented as points in a multidimensional, statistical face space (see Blanz & Vetter, 1999).…”

“…As explained by Todorov and Oosterhof (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008;Todorov & Oosterhof, 2011) and Walker and Vetter (2009;2016), face models are derived by using the mean ratings of each face regarding a certain trait.…”

A Field Evolves: Introduction to the Special Section on Law and Emotion

“…As Susan Bandes then recounts in "Remorse and Criminal Justice," legal decision makers in criminal cases rely not only on memory accounts but also on present-day assessments of whether the defendant is properly remorseful (Bandes, 2016). Such assessments drive decisions ranging from parole to termof-years sentencing, but are nowhere more important than in the (distinctly American) context of capital punishment.…”

Appraisals and Reappraisals in the Courtroom

“…Mock jurors viewed a defendant who expressed remorse either verbally or nonverbally. Participants rated the defendant who displayed nonverbal cues as more remorseful than the one who merely said he felt remorse (Corwin et al, 2012), perhaps because they believe that nonverbal cues are more accurate indicators of true emotion (see Bandes, 2016).…”